kirkwb
Establishing Cost to Power ratios: Allies
by
, 08-03-2010 at 05:32 PM (3225 Views)
I think the cost to power ratios for vanilla allies and vanilla burn spells needs to be established.
Vanilla refers to cards that have no other powers, just a straight up ATK/Health for Allies or damage to one Target for burn.
From here you can asses power levels of cards with abilities and you can even asses the powers level of other types of cards by comparing them to allies and burn at the same cost, but I'll write more on that later.
Allies with no special powers:
I like starting with the Snake at 1 cost for a 2/2. I think the 2 ATK and 2 health is OK under the current Combat System, but the person who plays the first one will have a huge advantage because theirs can deal its damage first. With that, you're going to need fast removal at 1 or 2 cost to balance out the power.
Other vanilla 1 drops can play around with moving the stat points around.
In the current combat system Allies with higher attacks like a 3/1 may have a little too much advantage when you're going first, so it should have restrictions or a draw back, which technically isn't vanilla, but should still be looked at.
After that, any 1 drops with a special ability should lose a stat point (or points) and be 2/1's, 1/2's, 1/1's, or even 0/3's or 0/2's depending on the ability.
As you go up the ladder the stats can start to get a little skewed so you may want to temper them a little by not following a rigid step ladder. A higher total sum of the stat points when divided should favor the health over attack, maybe.
The ladder for basic vanilla allies could be:
1 cost = 4 stat points
2 cost = 5 stat points
3 cost = 6-7 stat points
4 cost = 7-8 stat points
5 cost = 8-10 stat points
6 cost = 9-12 stat points
etc.
Maybe establish a set of vanilla allies that define the feel at each cost:
1 cost:
2/2, 1/3, (or 3/1 with a deck building/class/combat restriction)
2 cost:
2/3, 3/2, 4/1 (You can get away with the high attack for vanilla 2 cost allies without a restriction, because your opponent has 2 turns to come up with an answer before it can attack.
3 cost:
3/3, 4/2, 2/4, 2/5, 5/1
4 cost:
4/4, 5/3, 4/3, 3/5, 2/6, 6/2.
5 cost:
5/5, 6/4, 4/6, 4/5, 5/4, 3/7, 7/2
6 cost:
6/6, 5/6, 6/5, 4/7, 7/3
And so on. Play testing would help you get a better feel for vanilla allies. The first decks for this beta should have had only Vanilla allies at all costs to get a feel for combat before introducing allies with abilities.
I'll do burn spells in another blog.
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